I've been an airplane nut since I was five years old (I'm 85 now) and I never heard of this aircraft. A pair of R-3350s? Holy cylinders batman! I think the 75 mm was a bit much. A smaller gun with armor piercing ammo and many more rounds would be my preference. I worked at Fairchild in Hagerstown, MD when the A-10s were being assembled. I know most of its survivability features not available in other aircraft. It even has an APU (auxilliary power unit) for use in remote areas where ground equipment isn't available. It's one great machine.
' I think the 75 mm was a bit much' When I hear WW2 period radial craft, I hear 'Coming to get you MFer' Why do you think it needed 'a pair of R-3350s'? Excessive? NAH they brought it home to the enemy One time when the excess you 'warriors' wallow in was 'allowed' 😉
Well. I agree and disagree. I’m a young ww2 historian and engineer. I love the idea especially today as we rely to heavily on guided missiles when we used to make heavy artillery like the 16in naval guns of Mighty MO not only accurate to 3meters of intended target using a mechanical computer what could we do today. But that’s a conversation on its own. My original point is firstly. There was one bigger, it was an Italian seaplane/cargo plane that mounted a 102mm howitzer to it as a main gun ad even at the end of viatenam and early desert shield. We mounted twin 105mm howitzers to Chinook cargo helos. I think bringing back the idea of medium and large caliber auto cannons for vehicle and static mounting is a good idea.
Still remember the first time I saw a pair of A-10’s fly over the family farm at low level around 1982. I recall this whistling sound for 10-15 seconds before they roared right over at about 1500’. Really didn’t recognize the sound as an aircraft until they were right on us. I remember being very impressed.
A friend of mine was an NCO on a Hawk AA missile battery in Germany. During excercises the NATO aircraft were always testing the Hawk units. The (serious) game was to get the Hawk before it got them. The only plane they never detected until it in their face was the A-10. First, they flew so low and took advantage of the rolling hills terrain. Second, with any noise around them they could never hear the A-10. He said they tried their best to nail the Warthogs but never succeeded.
"Legendary" is a good word, since like most legends, it's greatly exaggerated. The A-10 has been shot down more per mission flown than any other fixed-wing aircraft currently in service. It can take small arms fire while protecting the pilot and (mostly) the engines, but missiles and dedicated AA guns still shoot it down fine, and unlike the other jets used for close air support and ground-attack, it's slow enough that both those things can hit it easily. Although the OA-1K is even slower and it doesn't get shot down nearly as often while flying the same missions, so speed can't be the only factor.
@@Bacteriophagebs Maybe the mission-to-loss-rate has to do with the general dangers of the missions flown. I do imagine an A-10 faces a hell of a lot more dangerous shite than an OA-1K does.
The A-1 Skyraider also had the same problem as the XA-38, using the same engine that was used on the B-29. It succeeded by becoming the first acceptable dive bomber replacement since the pre-war design SBD Dauntless.
The A-1 was not a dedicated dive bomber. It could also carry torpedoes. In any case, the Douglas A-26 was already in production late in the war and would see action in WWII, Korea, and even Vietnam. And like The A-1 and A-4 "Scooter" not to mention the SBD, all were designed by Ed Heinemann.
@@scootergeorge7089 And? It was a multi role aircraft. Kind of like how F-106 interceptors were replaced by F-16s in the US ANG. Even though the F-16 isn't an interceptor, it can perform interceptor roles.
@@calvinnickel9995 - My old Navy Adversary Squadron, VFC-13 flies the F-16 today. They had the A-4 and 2 seat TA-4 back in the late 1980's and early 1990's.
Those A20s at the very front of your Video were from the 387th Squadron, 312th Bomb Group making an attack on an Imperial Japanese Navy Seaplane Base at Kokus, in Papau New Guinea when the one on the right was hit by flak through the Bombay doors. The A20 "Bevo" crashed into Sekar Bay killing pilot James Kharr and Gunner Charles Reichly. What wound up replacing the Douglas A20 was the Douglas A26 powered by the PW2800. That Beechcraft looks potent. Thanks for the educational post.
Is that 75 mm specific to the XA-38 or is it just a T13E1 auto canon, the same type as fitted to the A-26 and B-25H Mitchell. Because the B-25H was already in service without the need for R-3350 motors and used in POA as Marine PBJ 1H.And 11th AF in the Aleutian Campaign. After all the Boeing XPBB-1production was abandoned primarily to free up production facilities and Motors for B-29 and laterly B-32.
I suspect that if the Engine shortages have been resolved in time, XA - 38 would have been scrapped after the war by the new USAF, because they were obsessed with jets. The A-1 Skyraider was built to a navy contract. It’s original designation was AD. It was changed to A-1 when the DoD introduced a common aircraft designation system in 1962.
I actually had a similar thought, If they *had* gone into production, They could’ve found a way to slap an engine into the fuselage or slightly into it like an experimental A-26. Maybe the resources needed to be invested in modernizing them would’ve been to much, But after the war the allies had so many aircraft, ships, tanks being scrapped. The planes would probably be sold off to other countries, Where they’d probably fall into Argentine, Brazilian, Italian, French hands.
What wasn't really mentioned was that an aircraft being developed in 1944 wasn't a priority if it wasn't a jet - the war was obviously going to end soon and what's the point of setting up another logistics train, and everything else that a new model would need (training schools, production lines etc) when the current line up was modern enough to get the job done. As for being a bomber destroyer - where was the advantage over the P38? Late war USAAF/USN/Marines was over-run with fighter bombers with similar, or better, performance/payload so adding another string to the talented roster just wouldn't make sense. And did anyone mention the Mosquito Mk XVIII Tsetse? It had a big gun but wasn't produced in numbers because their wasn't enough upside to the idea - and the protracted run in for aiming made it vulnerable when rockets were roughly equivalent (and less strain on the airframe, lighter etc).
There are 3 WWII planes that come to mind as forerunners of the A-10 because of their mission options. First is the B-25 using a skip bombing technique that devastated Japanese commercial and troop carrier ships. The A-26 also was excellent against ground targets with its hornets nest of guns firing forward. Why wait to battle enemy planes in the air when it's so much quicker to wipe them out strafing the airfields. In the ETO the P-47 was a tank killer and train nemesis. Rugged construction, size, radial engine, and 8 .50 caliber machine guns were more than a match for buildings, trucks, troop carriers, and infantry. Adding a bomb load let them feast on tanks, artillery, and fortified positions. They could absorb a lot of gunfire and keep flying. More than one came home looking like Swiss cheese.
Big miss by all. The A-10 airframe design and cockpit protective "tub" and dedicated ground attack mission is an immediate version of the 1938 prototype and 1940 production of the Soviet Ilyushin Il-2 Shturmovik lethal ground pounder. No other Allied or Axis attack aircraft shares so many critical and proven design elements. The only major airframe difference is the jet engine upgrade. Both share the extremely robust sturdy airframe to survive ground fire. Any other contenders as predecessors is simply silly.
The B25H also used a 75 MM cannon in the nose but the recoil was hell on slowing the plane and the airframe of the plane, but hell on ground targets !!!
just when you think youve seen it all and pretty much have all the aircraft down.. something pops out of history to show you. you can never know everything. thanks for the share
many years ago (like in the early 70s), when in high school I wrote to Beech and asked for information on the Beech 18, they sent me a complete history of the 18 which included photos of XA-38, pics of the first 18 to the last ones. Since then, I always thought Beech was a great company. I'm now on my 3rd ownership of a Beech aircraft the one I have now is a 67 Beech Turbo Baron 56TC.
The other thing is, the B-25 was heavily field modified for the roll of ground attack, and it was pretty good at doing that. But I've come to find out that the 75mm gun in the B-25 was not many planes had it. Too much recoil. And in Europe, you had the Mosquito that was a great ground attacker/fighter.
Indeed the B-25 was a great platform. If you dive deep into it's history and performance there can be a strong argument made that the B-25 could be better described as a heavy fighter instead of a medium bomber.
Plus, if I remember correctly, the 75mm gun in the B-25H was essentially an Army howitzer with the wheels removed. Also, that weapon needed to be loaded manually. Why put such a large gun in the plane when it also had six 50-caliber machine guns? Swap out the cannon for, maybe two additional machine guns; then they might have had something.
Another not much talked about, but beautiful Beechcraft was the model 46, designated, the T-36/T-36A. 70 foot wingspan (same as the A/B-26 Invader) and also used twin PW R-2800 engines. It was pressurized and designed for advanced training. I am surprised it was never converted into a Business airplane for the 1950s. Maybe too many surplus DC-3s, but this bird was an easy 100 mph faster. Full scale mockup was completed but sadly, never flown. I first saw one in one of my Larry Ball books, "The Immortal Twin Beech" at pg 144.-148.
The IL2 was the inspiration for the A10. Dedicated ground attack. Armored tub around the engine and pilot, radiator behind the engine, devastating payload of 200 shaped charge bomblets (just one hit would disable a Tiger) and the most produced warplane of all time.
sorry to mention the unmentionable, but I have this plane in warthunder (say what you will about that game but it's amazing to see a plane like this in a flight sim at all) Absolutely hilarious machine, I don't think anything else in my collection enrages tank players more than getting picked off by one of these, and I don't blame them, there's almost zero counterplay for that tanker, it's evil and I love it.
Little note with the A-10 - specifically with that pic of that huge chunk taken out of the engin pod. If you go to the Kalamazoo Air Zoo (highly recommended!) and go to their restoration hanger (VERY much recommended!) they've got that in the front lobby - or rather one they had to re-damage to restore to looking like that (and a note about how odd that was to do.)
I was excited to see this subject brought up I enjoy your videos immensely . In this case I must disagree with your assumptions on this aircraft . my grandfather was consulted at the highest level on fitting artillery guns in American planes the aircraft that did end up taking them had to be bolstered greatly. and his favorite candidate for this kind of role was definitely the p61 Black widow that was of course used as a night fighter and that was its main role the beach if you stack it next to the brilliant design by Mr Northrop produced especially with the problematic engines is it really so amazing .
I learned about this plane in a book entitled Born of the South Wind. A book about the history of aviation in the State of Kansas in the 20th century. Beechcraft decided to keep building the Beechcraft Model 18. Which they did from WWII till 1970.
It didn't help that the A-1 Skyraider could carry *WAY* more weapons loads and was likely going to be way cheaper to build than the XA-38. In fact, had World War II lasted just one year longer, it's likely the A-1 Skyraider would have been in wide service as a dedicated ground attack plane against Axis forces.
Never heard of the A38 before. Wonder how it would have performed in the Korean War against Soviet tanks the North Koreans had. The AD/A1 Skyraider was the last piston powered attack aircraft used by the Navy, Marines and I believe the South Vietnamese Airforce. After the USN/USMC retired there planes the Airforce refurbished some for use as air cover for SAR missions in Vietnam. BTW 2 A1s defeated 2 MiGs during the Vietnam War.
Great video sir, as usual. I'm a little surprised you didn't mention the Douglas A26 Invader, which would have been a contemporary of the Grizzly. Other than that, please keep them coming.
The A10 is a jet-powered, single seat version of the B25G/H. For years I assumed one was larger than the other. Then I saw them side-by-side and it became obvious they were taking up the same amount of space on the ramp. You might as well come up with a nickname like Warthog, because there was no catchy nickname for the G/H. PBJ is the Navy variant that usually did not get a gunship configuration. You might protest and say the G/H gun was too small. Actually, it was so powerful, it could only be used in a shallow dive, in order to keep the plane from stalling in the air due to the gun's recoil.
The A-10 isn’t designed for air-to-air combat, but it does have two advantages; it’s very maneuverable and it has that big GAU-8 Avenger 30mm canon. An F-14 pilot told me how that worked against a Tomcat. Seeing the F-14 approaching, the Thunderbolt-II dove slightly, lifted its nose a bit, and then swung around in such a way that the canon was aimed at the Tomcat for the latter’s entire attack run. There’s nothing the F-14 could do about it because it had less maneuverability. And 30mm ammo generates bigger holes than the Tomcat’s 20mm (both canons are high speed Gatlings).
Yeah, well, the F14 was being "Gamed" by the A10... who dove down to the training deck, and then pulled up into the F14. In real air to air combat, an anemic and underpowered plane like an A10 is an easy gunnery target. You simply dive from a higher angle than he can pitch up. The reason this couldn't be done in the documented training scenario? the training floor was 5,500 feet. Diving on the A10 for a gun pass put the faster jets -below- their training floor. And violating the training floor in ACM training is an actual write-up and can end your fighter pilot career. A10's are functionally helpless against actual fighters, in 1 v 1 scenarios where the A10 has no additional support. They train to do what they can do, but what they can do isn't particularly much in those scenarios.
@@iroll There are several simulations involving A10 available on YT. If they are accurate, a single Bf109 would win against an A10. In fact, every WW2 fighter tested would win against an A10 and always for the same reason: they outmanoeuvre and outrun the A10.
The B-25 installation came first. Initially, they were jury rigged on early B-25s literally stolen from the Dutch air force in Indonesia. An American previously living in the Philippines before the Japanese invasion not only stole the aircraft, but jury-rigged a 75mm canon to it. This interested the Tech Rep from North American, who took the idea back to California with him. There were soon several 75mm armed B-25s and they proved their worth breaking up the Japanese invasion of some South Pacific islands. Appropriately enough, the man who stole the first aircraft was nicknamed “Pappy” Gunn.
1:49 Another A-10 love bite. The grizzly would have also been heckled out of use by another Douglas plane , the A-26 with more reliable engines. It also appears to unfortunately resemble the "Dina" from most angles hopefully its signature Beechcraft tail would have saved it from friendly fire (imprinted on the minds of both pilot and gunnery training alike via the T-18). Overall a more handsome machine than any of the above though.
My dad took the picture (part of a series) of that unfortunate A-20 Havoc that was shot down, and I have copies that were given to him as he was the flight leader of the first flight that attacked and he had the only camera equipped aircraft in the flight.
The Grizzly is a freebie plane (US planes) in WarThunder. You can fly it right away. The graphics, and dynamics in WarThunder are really good, and close (?) as possible to the real thing. As such you can get a solid idea of what it was like to fly and fire the cannon on this plane. It's close as you're going to get.
Considering some of the mistakes and messes made on both sides during the war. This plane was an instance where everything fell into place in terms of the gun, engines, performance and agility. Such a shame a few hundred weren't made back in 1943. It would have been interesting to see what it would have done to German bombers, considering the main gun was a tank gun. This was very much a forerunner to the A10. A real shame it never went into action.
What German bombers were flying in 1943? Hardly any and the few that there were, were being handily dealt with by existing aircraft. Even German reconnaissance wasn't able to spot troop and ship buildups for D-Day
@@calvinnickel9995 German bombers were operating in the Mediterranean especially against shipping. They introduced the guided X bomb to Allied shipping.
at a glanec it reminds me of the italian FC20, which I love flying in warthunder. It has a 37mm semi autocannon that had been taken from a ship's AA duty and crammed in the cockpit, manually reloaded by stripper clips. If they had progressed the design and gave it the ability to climb it could have been useful.
This is one of the bombers that I see if went into production, Could’ve possibly seen even a postwar career. Could’ve probably experimented with slapping a jet engine in/under the fuselage like one experimental version of an A-26.
In regard to the A-10's air to air capabilities, I've come across a few testimonies which give the A-10 more credibility for successful, if not at least survivability, in an air-to-air fight against a designated air-superiority aircraft. The testimonies point out the A-10's typically superior maneuverability as well as it's very low stall speed as two prime benefits due to the fact that air-superiority fighter aircraft are (typically) designed with having to fight opposing air-superiority aircraft. Plus, the A-10's ability to fly comfortably at extreme low levels gives the A-10 more defensive capabilities against air-to-air missiles by flying low enough to confuse the radar guidance of the air-to-air missiles. Of course, as alluded to, this does not necessarily mean that the A-10 is going to readily take down an F-22 Raptor, but it does indicate that the A-10 could very possibly be capable of surviving the encounter and maybe, just maybe, get in a lucky shot or two. As mentioned, these are just testimonies I've come across, but I am by no means completely knowledged of the extent of these claims to being accurate. So, if there is any further insight to this idea, I would appreciate hearing... er, reading about it.
If the XA-38 started as a private venture, I wonder if it was related to Beech rejecting the idea of building the Mosquito under licence and dismissing the Mosquito's concept, so having to come up with something "better". Beech was one of 5 manufacturers given plans of the Mosquito for evaluation - and that would have been early 1942. Regarding the XA-38 getting away from the P-51B at low level, how coudl that be? You stated a P-51B "at low level" could do 380mph, the you revised it back to mid-to-high 360mph range, but somehow was outrun by an aircraft whose top speed at low altitude was 348mph. Also, what engine did the P-51B have? Early P-51Bs had the V-1650-3, which was a higher altitude version, or the V-1650-7 of later P-51Bs and the P-51Ds, which was geared for better mid-altitude performance and had strengthened parts to enable higher boost.
Another thing that I think ended any hopes of the grizzly getting produced was the fact you had fighter bombers such as the P-47 thunderbolt which were good enough at taking enemy armor using rockets and something tells me the grizzly would have been an expensive bird I mean the United States Air Force wasn't happy with the $83,000 per plane price tag of the P-47 thunderbolt which is why they were phasing it out with the $49,000 per plane Merlin engine Mustang and I'd be willing to bet that the grizzly would have been around $200,000 per plane and my basis for this what is the $130,000 price tag have a P38 lightning I almost wonder if a smaller plane powered by a couple of r2800s and potentially getting to the prototype stage a couple of years earlier would have had a better chance
The irony of comparing it to the A-10 is that the Grizzly never went into full scale production because the Army Air Force realized, quite reasonably, that some of it's fighter designs were actually better choices for conducting ground attack in a contested air environment than was the purpose-built ground attack aircraft.
So this is a US design that had a similar evolution as the Bristol Beaufighter. Starting the same way and eventually ending up a ground attack aircraft. But with the Beaufighter also was able to carry a torpedo as well.
For me as a german the ME-262 with the 50mm cannon is a at least produced and used A-10 reletive. Its even a Jet and could carry some armament beside the cannon.
I can't help but think if they'd gone with a 57mm cannon (perhaps based on the M1 then in service with the Army) that the aircraft would've had a more effective and longer lasting armament compared to the 20 rounds of 75 and all that .50. For the kinds of targets they would be engaging, especially from above, I'm pretty sure 57mm would go through the roof of most vehicles and a fair few lighter fortifications. Had they ever adopted it and wanted to increase its overall weapons load I think the 57mm, the 6 (+4) .50s and a few 500lb bombs would have been a pretty solid loadout.
There was a Mosquito with a 57mm - it wasn't a hit and had a very limited production run. Big guns in aircraft just don't work well - the Mosquito Mk XVIII Tsetse was thought to be vulnerable on the aiming run and rockets were preferred for hard targets.
A-10. Awesome plane for its role. Hands down the best ground support aircraft ever built and would have chewed Soviet tanks to bits. As shown recently, Russian armor is pretty awful.
It was made to fight an enemy that doesnt exist anymore (the soviet armored columns), nowadays a plane can use ground attack weapons without sacrificing its performance that much.
Well, I could point to Russia's current dumbfuckery in Ukraine. Like their use of tanks as single use mine clearance vehicles, or the succession of river crossing attempts in Vuhledar. If the war in Ukraine has taught us anything, there's no tactic too stupid for the Russian army to try.
Even the USAF projected daily losses in the hundreds in a 7 Days to the Rhine Scenario. It was the most shot down Coalition aircraft of the Gulf War--some by single Strela and Igla MANPADS and others by light AA fire. Many that 'survived' were write-offs and this was even in spite of them halting A-10 operations under complete air supremacy was achieved late in the war. The F-16s flew more strikes, the F-111s killed more tanks. The only place the A-10 excels is under permissive environments where the smaller and cheaper A-29 Super Tucano and AC-208 Caravan can do the same job. No 30mm GAU.. but that is useless against tanks armoured for 100mm+ rounds and really good at killing friendly soldiers. The A-10 is garbage. And the grunts who cheer for it don't know that it's more deadly to them than ISIS is.
The soviet equivalent gets shot down over Ukraine quite a lot even though it's faster than the A10 - it can actually outrun MANPADS whereas the A10 has to outrange them. As for A10 taking out tanks - its cannon just isn't accurate enough (plenty of videos on RUclips), and also brings you into range of AAA/MANPADS so has to stay behind the lines to pick off tanks with smart munitions - something the F16 can do just as well at about the same hourly rate and able to defend itself too.
A design like this is built around the canon. It is a heavy piece of equipment. Compare that to an airplane with a dozen rockets (mounted under the wings) that have shaped copper charges. I do not have numbers for the weight of the canon or the rockets but it would not surprise me if they were similar. Additionally, when an airplane is carrying a bunch of rockets under its wings those rockets will affect its speed. That said, a rocket with a shaped copper charge has much more destructive potential than a three inch canon shell. There are successful airplanes from the mid and late ww2 era with cannons however they became obsolete when the rockets were available.
Well, it’s optics were terrible, the gun was too inaccurate to safely use for CAS, and other aircraft can drop the same guided bombs… I’m really struggling to see why you like it. The only advantage I can think of is that if you want to destroy a large structure a significant distance from friendlies, that has no air defence, cheaply. In which case it’s gun is useful. Even then, an AC130 is probably better.
@@HALLish-jl5moanyone who spells it “defence” has zero experience with it. Except for the Blues and Royals.😂 My guess is they’d tell you its gun is accurate enough
It would have been nice if the Air Farce had not cried and waved the Key West Agreement around when the Army was going to buy the Enforcer which would have been a great ground support aircraft that is capable of being forward staged.
WRIGHT 3350's; that's some big, heavy engines. The decision not to go with P&W 2800's probably had a lot to do with that engine already earmarked for so many other a/c that there was no excess production capacity. Certainly by 1944, the "smaller," lighter, less thirsty 2800 was making power equivalent to the 3350. Maybe with some chagrin on your part, you might consider a more likely candidate for the A-10 ancestral family tree to be one of your less-liked a/c, the Hs-129! You see, before Fairchild Republic cut metal for the A-10, the U.S. Air Force consulted with Hans Ulrich Rudel, WWII 's most experienced/successful ground attack pilot, regarding requirements for a best anti-tank a/c. Among his recommendations were redundancy, i.e., controls & twin engines, heavy protection for all vital systems to include armored cockpit tub, excess power, high rate of fire, flat shooting, high penetration gun, generous loiter time, variable weapons load out. So you see, just like Tyranosaurus to chicken, sometimes evolution can take some unanticipated turns. Like, Ju-87/Hs-129 to A-10.🙃
@@dareisnogod5711 Thanks for correcting me - I´m not a native English speaker so I make a lot of mistakes. And, interestingly, I make more the older I get.
It's a really well designed plane. But it had indeed little value as a bomber killer by the time it could enter production, not many bomb raids were performed by either Germany or Japan in 1944, the newer fighters at hand for the allies were perfectly capable of taking out those bombers and their escorts. As a ground attack aircraft it could have been of value in Europe as it was probably more effective against tanks with its 75mm cannon, but otherwise this role was adequately performed by the P-47, B-25 attack variants and the Hawker Typhoon.
There were other engines that would have given the '38 exdeptional performance so I don't buy the P&W R3350 scarcity was responsible for its demise. The Luftwaffe never had big bombers that needed to be shot down by a flying cannon. The Spits, Hurricanes, Lightnings, Thunderbolts and Mustangs took care of what the Germans through up just fine.
WOW! This would have been the highest horsepower ground attack aircraft of WWII if it had been put into production with those high horsepower giant R-3350's! Had the allies had enough of these bad boys in service early in the war, these would have wreaked absolute havoc on the German ground forces and tank units spread across Europe. Most likely it was too late in the war to make a difference so they weren't pursued, or, they were probably the planned aircraft for attacking both the German's and the Japanese if the war would have extended out further than it did. America was probably thinking about what type of aircraft they could design to inflict the most damage against German tanks, Artillery pieces, FLAK gun emplacements, and even light attack and bombing on less significant targets or smaller targets where this type of aircraft would have been extremely effective in destroying the target on the first pass, especially if you had a group of these aircraft diving in and opening up with everything they had. The enclosed rear cabin and ability to turn the turrets a full 360 degrees from an electrically controlled firing station made it a very formidable aircraft to deal with in air to air battle as well, giving a better chance of survivability to the rear gunner who could be protected better than some of the earlier designed attack aircraft and dive bombing aircraft, many of which had OPEN designed rear gunner seats to allow movement of the guns during battle. Many Germany pilots would come in behind an aircraft that had rear facing gunners and they would attempt to quickly dispatch the gunner to avoid being shot at from the rear giving them a much better chance of hitting their mark from the rear with no interference from a rear firing machine gun. This would have been the Soviet IL2 Ilyushin "Sturmovik" ground attack aircraft on steroids! The Soviet IL2 was another aircraft that was studied when creating the famous A10 Thunderbolt II "Warthog" in addition to the JU-87 Stuka dive bomber, which was the original "Ground Attacker" in the modified 37 mm cannon carrying variant or "tank buster" variant which was flown with great success against the Russian tanks on the Eastern front. Even though the giant R-3350 engines did have some problems (which was discovered in the B-29's that had a LOT of engine failures due to mechanical problems), it still would have been one of the most powerful fighter/attacker aircraft of the entire war. It could have probably just outran anything that was trying to pursue it, except maybe the ME262, but even then, with the armament and ability to rotate the turrets to favorable positions easily from inside the aircraft could have allowed the aircraft to defend itself whilst trying to evade anything that was trying to shoot it down. The Grumman Tiger Cat was of similar design, although this Beechcraft XA-38 Grizzly was much more powerful and had much more armament and more powerful weapons. The Tiger Cat was designed to be a carrier based aircraft so it had to shed a lot more weight than this aircraft. This could have also been an incredible ground attack aircraft for both the Korean and Vietnam wars also had it been put into production and the US and it's allies would have had them in significant numbers.
The B-25 with it's eight 50cal machine guns plus it's bomb load was actually a better ground attack aircraft and was already being used as such. The P-38 and P-47, required just the pilot and by 1943 the army airforce had more planes then aircrews, what with the losses it was suffering in Europe. In fact the specifications laid out for the Skyraider to replace the Avengers and Dauntless was that it required just one pilot. The British already had the faster Mosquito and America could use the other twin engine bombers in it's inventory so why build something they didn't need since Japan and Germany didn't have any heavy bombers.
P47 is more like the grandfather of the F16 and F18: it was a fighter who was then tasked with becoming a ground attack plane…the F4 was their father, same situation as the P47 but with missiles instead of guns. this plane is the true grandfather, built from the ground up to be a close air support plane vs. a bomber fitted with more guns like the A20 or a fighter used in strafing like the P47 and P51. the A-1 was its father, a true ground attack and close air support plane that lasted well into the jet age and only retired when it was replaced by the A10
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I've been an airplane nut since I was five years old (I'm 85 now) and I never heard of this aircraft. A pair of R-3350s? Holy cylinders batman! I think the 75 mm was a bit much. A smaller gun with armor piercing ammo and many more rounds would be my preference. I worked at Fairchild in Hagerstown, MD when the A-10s were being assembled. I know most of its survivability features not available in other aircraft. It even has an APU (auxilliary power unit) for use in remote areas where ground equipment isn't available. It's one great machine.
A 57mm gun like the Mosquito tsetse used might have been more practical.
@@neilwilson5785 👍👍👍👍👍
The Mosquito with a 57mm automatic and lots of rounds--as you suggest--was highly successful in WW2.
' I think the 75 mm was a bit much'
When I hear WW2 period radial craft, I hear 'Coming to get you MFer'
Why do you think it needed 'a pair of R-3350s'?
Excessive? NAH they brought it home to the enemy
One time when the excess you 'warriors' wallow in was 'allowed'
😉
Well. I agree and disagree. I’m a young ww2 historian and engineer. I love the idea especially today as we rely to heavily on guided missiles when we used to make heavy artillery like the 16in naval guns of Mighty MO not only accurate to 3meters of intended target using a mechanical computer what could we do today. But that’s a conversation on its own. My original point is firstly. There was one bigger, it was an Italian seaplane/cargo plane that mounted a 102mm howitzer to it as a main gun ad even at the end of viatenam and early desert shield. We mounted twin 105mm howitzers to Chinook cargo helos. I think bringing back the idea of medium and large caliber auto cannons for vehicle and static mounting is a good idea.
Never get tired of your finds...I knew of the -38 but it's still nice to hear about it again.
Still remember the first time I saw a pair of A-10’s fly over the family farm at low level around 1982. I recall this whistling sound for 10-15 seconds before they roared right over at about 1500’. Really didn’t recognize the sound as an aircraft until they were right on us. I remember being very impressed.
A friend of mine was an NCO on a Hawk AA missile battery in Germany. During excercises the NATO aircraft were always testing the Hawk units. The (serious) game was to get the Hawk before it got them. The only plane they never detected until it in their face was the A-10. First, they flew so low and took advantage of the rolling hills terrain. Second, with any noise around them they could never hear the A-10. He said they tried their best to nail the Warthogs but never succeeded.
The A-10 is such an amazing looking aircraft. I love everything about it. Its ruggedness and durability are legendary.
"Legendary" is a good word, since like most legends, it's greatly exaggerated. The A-10 has been shot down more per mission flown than any other fixed-wing aircraft currently in service.
It can take small arms fire while protecting the pilot and (mostly) the engines, but missiles and dedicated AA guns still shoot it down fine, and unlike the other jets used for close air support and ground-attack, it's slow enough that both those things can hit it easily.
Although the OA-1K is even slower and it doesn't get shot down nearly as often while flying the same missions, so speed can't be the only factor.
@@Bacteriophagebs Maybe the mission-to-loss-rate has to do with the general dangers of the missions flown. I do imagine an A-10 faces a hell of a lot more dangerous shite than an OA-1K does.
Don’t forget our other CAS jet, the little A-37. She did well in Vietnam and definitely bunch above her weight.
Another amazing informative video by you. Never disappointed. 👍❤❤
The A-1 Skyraider also had the same problem as the XA-38, using the same engine that was used on the B-29. It succeeded by becoming the first acceptable dive bomber replacement since the pre-war design SBD Dauntless.
The A-1 was not a dedicated dive bomber. It could also carry torpedoes. In any case, the Douglas A-26 was already in production late in the war and would see action in WWII, Korea, and even Vietnam. And like The A-1 and A-4 "Scooter" not to mention the SBD, all were designed by Ed Heinemann.
@@scootergeorge7089 And? It was a multi role aircraft. Kind of like how F-106 interceptors were replaced by F-16s in the US ANG. Even though the F-16 isn't an interceptor, it can perform interceptor roles.
@@calvinnickel9995 - My old Navy Adversary Squadron, VFC-13 flies the F-16 today. They had the A-4 and 2 seat TA-4 back in the late 1980's and early 1990's.
Never heard of this interesting aircraft, seems one of those promising late war “ might have beens” Thanks for featuring it.
Those A20s at the very front of your Video were from the 387th Squadron, 312th Bomb Group making an attack on an Imperial Japanese Navy Seaplane Base at Kokus, in Papau New Guinea when the one on the right was hit by flak through the Bombay doors. The A20 "Bevo" crashed into Sekar Bay killing pilot James Kharr and Gunner Charles Reichly.
What wound up replacing the Douglas A20 was the Douglas A26 powered by the PW2800. That Beechcraft looks potent. Thanks for the educational post.
Is that 75 mm specific to the XA-38 or is it just a T13E1 auto canon, the same type as fitted to the A-26 and B-25H Mitchell. Because the B-25H was already in service without the need for R-3350 motors and used in POA as Marine PBJ 1H.And 11th AF in the Aleutian Campaign. After all the Boeing XPBB-1production was abandoned primarily to free up production facilities and Motors for B-29 and laterly B-32.
I suspect that if the Engine shortages have been resolved in time, XA - 38 would have been scrapped after the war by the new USAF, because they were obsessed with jets. The A-1 Skyraider was built to a navy contract. It’s original designation was AD. It was changed to A-1 when the DoD introduced a common aircraft designation system in 1962.
I actually had a similar thought, If they *had* gone into production, They could’ve found a way to slap an engine into the fuselage or slightly into it like an experimental A-26.
Maybe the resources needed to be invested in modernizing them would’ve been to much, But after the war the allies had so many aircraft, ships, tanks being scrapped. The planes would probably be sold off to other countries, Where they’d probably fall into Argentine, Brazilian, Italian, French hands.
What wasn't really mentioned was that an aircraft being developed in 1944 wasn't a priority if it wasn't a jet - the war was obviously going to end soon and what's the point of setting up another logistics train, and everything else that a new model would need (training schools, production lines etc) when the current line up was modern enough to get the job done.
As for being a bomber destroyer - where was the advantage over the P38?
Late war USAAF/USN/Marines was over-run with fighter bombers with similar, or better, performance/payload so adding another string to the talented roster just wouldn't make sense.
And did anyone mention the Mosquito Mk XVIII Tsetse? It had a big gun but wasn't produced in numbers because their wasn't enough upside to the idea - and the protracted run in for aiming made it vulnerable when rockets were roughly equivalent (and less strain on the airframe, lighter etc).
flyingwombat also it would seem the PW R2800 could have been used as it actually had near similiar power and was far more reliable !!
There are 3 WWII planes that come to mind as forerunners of the A-10 because of their mission options.
First is the B-25 using a skip bombing technique that devastated Japanese commercial and troop carrier ships.
The A-26 also was excellent against ground targets with its hornets nest of guns firing forward. Why wait to battle enemy planes in the air when it's so much quicker to wipe them out strafing the airfields.
In the ETO the P-47 was a tank killer and train nemesis. Rugged construction, size, radial engine, and 8 .50 caliber machine guns were more than a match for buildings, trucks, troop carriers, and infantry. Adding a bomb load let them feast on tanks, artillery, and fortified positions. They could absorb a lot of gunfire and keep flying. More than one came home looking like Swiss cheese.
Big miss by all. The A-10 airframe design and cockpit protective "tub" and dedicated ground attack mission is an immediate version of the 1938 prototype and 1940 production of the Soviet Ilyushin Il-2 Shturmovik lethal ground pounder. No other Allied or Axis attack aircraft shares so many critical and proven design elements. The only major airframe difference is the jet engine upgrade. Both share the extremely robust sturdy airframe to survive ground fire. Any other contenders as predecessors is simply silly.
The B25H also used a 75 MM cannon in the nose but the recoil was hell on slowing the plane and the airframe of the plane, but hell on ground targets !!!
I was waiting for the Skyraider to be mentioned 😊 Great Channel 👍
Both prototypes should've been sent to aviation museums.
I always learn something at 80 years old from you!
Same here. I'm just a kid, at 61!
DUDE !!!!! You dropped the ball ... Your were the one in charge of not forgetting...
I’ve got a thing for twin-engined twin-tailed aircraft. The aesthetics really appeals to me. Thanks for bringing this aircraft to my attention.
just when you think youve seen it all and pretty much have all the aircraft down.. something pops out of history to show you. you can never know everything. thanks for the share
Seeing the 75mm gun in person is impressive. The USAF Armament Museum outside Eglin AFB, Destin Florida, is really worth a visit.
I worked for Beechcraft from 1964 thru 1969 but never heard of this aircraft.
many years ago (like in the early 70s), when in high school I wrote to Beech and asked for information on the Beech 18, they sent me a complete history of the 18 which included photos of XA-38, pics of the first 18 to the last ones. Since then, I always thought Beech was a great company. I'm now on my 3rd ownership of a Beech aircraft the one I have now is a 67 Beech Turbo Baron 56TC.
During the 1960s the USAF seriously considered ordering new build A-1 Skyraiders from Douglas but apparently Douglas quoted a price that was too high.
The other thing is, the B-25 was heavily field modified for the roll of ground attack, and it was pretty good at doing that. But I've come to find out that the 75mm gun in the B-25 was not many planes had it. Too much recoil. And in Europe, you had the Mosquito that was a great ground attacker/fighter.
Indeed the B-25 was a great platform. If you dive deep into it's history and performance there can be a strong argument made that the B-25 could be better described as a heavy fighter instead of a medium bomber.
Plus, if I remember correctly, the 75mm gun in the B-25H was essentially an Army howitzer with the wheels removed. Also, that weapon needed to be loaded manually.
Why put such a large gun in the plane when it also had six 50-caliber machine guns? Swap out the cannon for, maybe two additional machine guns; then they might have had something.
@@garydaniels5495 The 75MM was the same gun the Sherman tank used, where the first field mods came from !!
By 1944 there really were not many bombers for the XP-38 to take out, as well.
The XP what?… I’m pretty damn sure the P-38 is a 1940s plane mate
Another not much talked about, but beautiful Beechcraft was the model 46, designated, the T-36/T-36A. 70 foot wingspan (same as the A/B-26 Invader) and also used twin PW R-2800 engines. It was pressurized and designed for advanced training. I am surprised it was never converted into a Business airplane for the 1950s. Maybe too many surplus DC-3s, but this bird was an easy 100 mph faster. Full scale mockup was completed but sadly, never flown. I first saw one in one of my Larry Ball books, "The Immortal Twin Beech" at pg 144.-148.
Excellent stuff bro, yep I’m liking this one. This is new to me thanks
Always loved the Grizzly, just the idea of a 75mm cannon in a plane is awesome! 😁😆😅
The IL2 was the inspiration for the A10. Dedicated ground attack. Armored tub around the engine and pilot, radiator behind the engine, devastating payload of 200 shaped charge bomblets (just one hit would disable a Tiger) and the most produced warplane of all time.
@@bruceparr1678 I have made the same assertion of the1938 prototype and 1940 production. The most produced airframe was the Polikarpov Po-2 (U-2).
I wonder if the A26 might have had anything to do with the XA-38 being cansled?
What’s a “cansled”?
@@JoshJones-37334 A typo that anyone with average intelligence can understand due to context.
sorry to mention the unmentionable, but I have this plane in warthunder (say what you will about that game but it's amazing to see a plane like this in a flight sim at all)
Absolutely hilarious machine, I don't think anything else in my collection enrages tank players more than getting picked off by one of these, and I don't blame them, there's almost zero counterplay for that tanker, it's evil and I love it.
Little note with the A-10 - specifically with that pic of that huge chunk taken out of the engin pod. If you go to the Kalamazoo Air Zoo (highly recommended!) and go to their restoration hanger (VERY much recommended!) they've got that in the front lobby - or rather one they had to re-damage to restore to looking like that (and a note about how odd that was to do.)
Damn. This thing would have rocked in Korea and early Vietnam.
Bristol beufighter anyone? Sounds like they built a "Mosquito" and didn't notice
The Axis powers never had heavy bombers that this aircraft would have gone up against. Sounds like a good aircraft that I never heard of.
Thanks for the research and presentation. New Subscriber.
Ah yes, the A10. The story of a Gun looking for a way to make it fly. So the plane was built around the gun. Its such a lovely monster.
The P-39 did it first.
Huh. It is a curiously charming aircraft mostly because of its remarkable performance.
I was excited to see this subject brought up I enjoy your videos immensely . In this case I must disagree with your assumptions on this aircraft .
my
grandfather was consulted at the highest level on fitting artillery guns in American planes the aircraft that did end up taking them had to be bolstered greatly. and his favorite candidate for this kind of role was definitely the p61 Black widow that was of course used as a night fighter and that was its main role the beach if you stack it next to the brilliant design by Mr Northrop produced especially with the problematic engines is it really so amazing .
I learned about this plane in a book entitled Born of the South Wind. A book about the history of aviation in the State of Kansas in the 20th century. Beechcraft decided to keep building the Beechcraft Model 18. Which they did from WWII till 1970.
Skyraider is a very sexy plane
Its more the nam improved Corsair .
@@wolfgangemmerich7552 It predates Nam by decades. In fact it only entered service 3 years after the Corsair.
@@calvinnickel9995 I didn`t mean the prop powered ww2 Corsair ; i mean the jet engine powered Corsair ; sorry when i got misunderstand !
Your a very sexy plane
Your mother is a very sexy man!
It didn't help that the A-1 Skyraider could carry *WAY* more weapons loads and was likely going to be way cheaper to build than the XA-38. In fact, had World War II lasted just one year longer, it's likely the A-1 Skyraider would have been in wide service as a dedicated ground attack plane against Axis forces.
Did this aircraft also use something like the B29 ballistic computer for the remote-controlled gun turrets?
Never heard of the A38 before. Wonder how it would have performed in the Korean War against Soviet tanks the North Koreans had. The AD/A1 Skyraider was the last piston powered attack aircraft used by the Navy, Marines and I believe the South Vietnamese Airforce. After the USN/USMC retired there planes the Airforce refurbished some for use as air cover for SAR missions in Vietnam. BTW 2 A1s defeated 2 MiGs during the Vietnam War.
What is under the A-1E Skyraider wing at 00:41 seconds? Is that a cargo canister? Anti Foliage Bomb?
Daisy Cutter, I am thinking
Great video sir, as usual. I'm a little surprised you didn't mention the Douglas A26 Invader, which would have been a contemporary of the Grizzly. Other than that, please keep them coming.
They already have a full vid on the A26
@@tankdood329 Thanks tankdood. I'll check it out. Cheers, RC
The A10 is a jet-powered, single seat version of the B25G/H. For years I assumed one was larger than the other. Then I saw them side-by-side and it became obvious they were taking up the same amount of space on the ramp. You might as well come up with a nickname like Warthog, because there was no catchy nickname for the G/H. PBJ is the Navy variant that usually did not get a gunship configuration. You might protest and say the G/H gun was too small. Actually, it was so powerful, it could only be used in a shallow dive, in order to keep the plane from stalling in the air due to the gun's recoil.
The A-10 isn’t designed for air-to-air combat, but it does have two advantages; it’s very maneuverable and it has that big GAU-8 Avenger 30mm canon. An F-14 pilot told me how that worked against a Tomcat. Seeing the F-14 approaching, the Thunderbolt-II dove slightly, lifted its nose a bit, and then swung around in such a way that the canon was aimed at the Tomcat for the latter’s entire attack run. There’s nothing the F-14 could do about it because it had less maneuverability. And 30mm ammo generates bigger holes than the Tomcat’s 20mm (both canons are high speed Gatlings).
if an f14 needs to get in range of that 30mm then something has gone terribly wrong already
Yeah, well, the F14 was being "Gamed" by the A10... who dove down to the training deck, and then pulled up into the F14. In real air to air combat, an anemic and underpowered plane like an A10 is an easy gunnery target. You simply dive from a higher angle than he can pitch up. The reason this couldn't be done in the documented training scenario? the training floor was 5,500 feet. Diving on the A10 for a gun pass put the faster jets -below- their training floor. And violating the training floor in ACM training is an actual write-up and can end your fighter pilot career. A10's are functionally helpless against actual fighters, in 1 v 1 scenarios where the A10 has no additional support. They train to do what they can do, but what they can do isn't particularly much in those scenarios.
In reality the A-10 would be shot down without even seeing the F-14
@@andremacedo8463 My thought. It's arm-chair silliness... who would win, 100 Me-109s or one A-10!?!
@@iroll There are several simulations involving A10 available on YT. If they are accurate, a single Bf109 would win against an A10. In fact, every WW2 fighter tested would win against an A10 and always for the same reason: they outmanoeuvre and outrun the A10.
I wonder if the 75 mm cannon on this design was the spark idea that lead to the same caliber weapon being installed on some B-25s?
The B-25 installation came first. Initially, they were jury rigged on early B-25s literally stolen from the Dutch air force in Indonesia. An American previously living in the Philippines before the Japanese invasion not only stole the aircraft, but jury-rigged a 75mm canon to it. This interested the Tech Rep from North American, who took the idea back to California with him. There were soon several 75mm armed B-25s and they proved their worth breaking up the Japanese invasion of some South Pacific islands. Appropriately enough, the man who stole the first aircraft was nicknamed “Pappy” Gunn.
@@georgettewolf6743 Thank you for that information.
@@georgettewolf6743 this sounds story hollywood needs to tell. That is if hollywood were capable. It at least desrves a chapter in a history book.
1:49 Another A-10 love bite. The grizzly would have also been heckled out of use by another Douglas plane , the A-26 with more reliable engines. It also appears to unfortunately resemble the "Dina" from most angles hopefully its signature Beechcraft tail would have saved it from friendly fire (imprinted on the minds of both pilot and gunnery training alike via the T-18). Overall a more handsome machine than any of the above though.
My dad took the picture (part of a series) of that unfortunate A-20 Havoc that was shot down, and I have copies that were given to him as he was the flight leader of the first flight that attacked and he had the only camera equipped aircraft in the flight.
The Grizzly is a freebie plane (US planes) in WarThunder. You can fly it right away. The graphics, and dynamics in WarThunder are really good, and close (?) as possible to the real thing. As such you can get a solid idea of what it was like to fly and fire the cannon on this plane. It's close as you're going to get.
I'm sorry, but GI Joe taught me that knowing is half the battle. Therefore, looking cool can only be up to the other half. 😁
Considering some of the mistakes and messes made on both sides during the war. This plane was an instance where everything fell into place in terms of the gun, engines, performance and agility. Such a shame a few hundred weren't made back in 1943. It would have been interesting to see what it would have done to German bombers, considering the main gun was a tank gun. This was very much a forerunner to the A10. A real shame it never went into action.
What German bombers were flying in 1943? Hardly any and the few that there were, were being handily dealt with by existing aircraft. Even German reconnaissance wasn't able to spot troop and ship buildups for D-Day
@@calvinnickel9995 German bombers were operating in the Mediterranean especially against shipping. They introduced the guided X bomb to Allied shipping.
Lot of off the shelf Beech 18 parts on the grizzly.
at a glanec it reminds me of the italian FC20, which I love flying in warthunder. It has a 37mm semi autocannon that had been taken from a ship's AA duty and crammed in the cockpit, manually reloaded by stripper clips. If they had progressed the design and gave it the ability to climb it could have been useful.
This is one of the bombers that I see if went into production, Could’ve possibly seen even a postwar career. Could’ve probably experimented with slapping a jet engine in/under the fuselage like one experimental version of an A-26.
As an infantryman, the A-10 is the Guardian Angel.
Let’s just not talk about desert storm
Or Desrt Storm 2 Electric Boogaloo, every single guardsman I know hated those things, a fucking Friendly Fire Dispensary.
@@archibaldlarid3587What's the difference between Iraqis and Marines? You don't know? Welcome to the Air Force.
In regard to the A-10's air to air capabilities, I've come across a few testimonies which give the A-10 more credibility for successful, if not at least survivability, in an air-to-air fight against a designated air-superiority aircraft. The testimonies point out the A-10's typically superior maneuverability as well as it's very low stall speed as two prime benefits due to the fact that air-superiority fighter aircraft are (typically) designed with having to fight opposing air-superiority aircraft. Plus, the A-10's ability to fly comfortably at extreme low levels gives the A-10 more defensive capabilities against air-to-air missiles by flying low enough to confuse the radar guidance of the air-to-air missiles. Of course, as alluded to, this does not necessarily mean that the A-10 is going to readily take down an F-22 Raptor, but it does indicate that the A-10 could very possibly be capable of surviving the encounter and maybe, just maybe, get in a lucky shot or two.
As mentioned, these are just testimonies I've come across, but I am by no means completely knowledged of the extent of these claims to being accurate. So, if there is any further insight to this idea, I would appreciate hearing... er, reading about it.
35 seconds in and " the Skyraider BECAME Outdated. " By the Mid sixties they were 20 years old! They were old when my dad flew them in 1958.
Somebody needs to put out a 1/48 kit of this beast.
I think Anigrand Craftwork has a resin kit of the Grizzly, though it is in 1/72 scale. I hope this helps?
If the XA-38 started as a private venture, I wonder if it was related to Beech rejecting the idea of building the Mosquito under licence and dismissing the Mosquito's concept, so having to come up with something "better".
Beech was one of 5 manufacturers given plans of the Mosquito for evaluation - and that would have been early 1942.
Regarding the XA-38 getting away from the P-51B at low level, how coudl that be? You stated a P-51B "at low level" could do 380mph, the you revised it back to mid-to-high 360mph range, but somehow was outrun by an aircraft whose top speed at low altitude was 348mph.
Also, what engine did the P-51B have? Early P-51Bs had the V-1650-3, which was a higher altitude version, or the V-1650-7 of later P-51Bs and the P-51Ds, which was geared for better mid-altitude performance and had strengthened parts to enable higher boost.
Could You please do a video on the Yugoslav Rogožarski IK-2, RogožarskiIK-3 and the Ikarus S-49?
Thought the XA-38 was a mini B-25 at first look with the double tail. Sorta forgot about the A-20.
Another thing that I think ended any hopes of the grizzly getting produced was the fact you had fighter bombers such as the P-47 thunderbolt which were good enough at taking enemy armor using rockets and something tells me the grizzly would have been an expensive bird I mean the United States Air Force wasn't happy with the $83,000 per plane price tag of the P-47 thunderbolt which is why they were phasing it out with the $49,000 per plane Merlin engine Mustang and I'd be willing to bet that the grizzly would have been around $200,000 per plane and my basis for this what is the $130,000 price tag have a P38 lightning
I almost wonder if a smaller plane powered by a couple of r2800s and potentially getting to the prototype stage a couple of years earlier would have had a better chance
The A-38 would have been very valuable in Korea. Compared
to the F-51 being used for CAS
Carry a pair of Sidewinders for air to air
It in some way is quite similar to the DE Mosqueto MkXVIII Tsetse. Bigger overall, with an even bigger gun, but similar straight line performance.
The irony of comparing it to the A-10 is that the Grizzly never went into full scale production because the Army Air Force realized, quite reasonably, that some of it's fighter designs were actually better choices for conducting ground attack in a contested air environment than was the purpose-built ground attack aircraft.
Good Video. I Enjoy Learning About Aviation History. Thank You. (Like #80)
So this is a US design that had a similar evolution as the Bristol Beaufighter. Starting the same way and eventually ending up a ground attack aircraft. But with the Beaufighter also was able to carry a torpedo as well.
.... Hot diggity dog, thanks for filling in a hole in my knowledge of oddball planes~
For me as a german the ME-262 with the 50mm cannon is a at least produced and used A-10 reletive. Its even a Jet and could carry some armament beside the cannon.
I was interested in the Grizzly, but the A10 info wasn't needed.
The Murrican Ki-101?
I remember the most powerfull armed twin engine us ww2 planes was the Douglas Invader and the B-25 with 75mm gun .
I can't help but think if they'd gone with a 57mm cannon (perhaps based on the M1 then in service with the Army) that the aircraft would've had a more effective and longer lasting armament compared to the 20 rounds of 75 and all that .50.
For the kinds of targets they would be engaging, especially from above, I'm pretty sure 57mm would go through the roof of most vehicles and a fair few lighter fortifications.
Had they ever adopted it and wanted to increase its overall weapons load I think the 57mm, the 6 (+4) .50s and a few 500lb bombs would have been a pretty solid loadout.
There was a Mosquito with a 57mm - it wasn't a hit and had a very limited production run.
Big guns in aircraft just don't work well - the Mosquito Mk XVIII Tsetse was thought to be vulnerable on the aiming run and rockets were preferred for hard targets.
A-10. Awesome plane for its role. Hands down the best ground support aircraft ever built and would have chewed Soviet tanks to bits. As shown recently, Russian armor is pretty awful.
It was made to fight an enemy that doesnt exist anymore (the soviet armored columns), nowadays a plane can use ground attack weapons without sacrificing its performance that much.
Well, I could point to Russia's current dumbfuckery in Ukraine. Like their use of tanks as single use mine clearance vehicles, or the succession of river crossing attempts in Vuhledar. If the war in Ukraine has taught us anything, there's no tactic too stupid for the Russian army to try.
Even the USAF projected daily losses in the hundreds in a 7 Days to the Rhine Scenario. It was the most shot down Coalition aircraft of the Gulf War--some by single Strela and Igla MANPADS and others by light AA fire. Many that 'survived' were write-offs and this was even in spite of them halting A-10 operations under complete air supremacy was achieved late in the war.
The F-16s flew more strikes, the F-111s killed more tanks.
The only place the A-10 excels is under permissive environments where the smaller and cheaper A-29 Super Tucano and AC-208 Caravan can do the same job. No 30mm GAU.. but that is useless against tanks armoured for 100mm+ rounds and really good at killing friendly soldiers.
The A-10 is garbage. And the grunts who cheer for it don't know that it's more deadly to them than ISIS is.
The soviet equivalent gets shot down over Ukraine quite a lot even though it's faster than the A10 - it can actually outrun MANPADS whereas the A10 has to outrange them.
As for A10 taking out tanks - its cannon just isn't accurate enough (plenty of videos on RUclips), and also brings you into range of AAA/MANPADS so has to stay behind the lines to pick off tanks with smart munitions - something the F16 can do just as well at about the same hourly rate and able to defend itself too.
@@pd4165 apps.dtic.mil/sti/pdfs/ADA085713.pdf If you need more info.
i got to see its 75mm at Elgin afb
idk about this, the A-20, B-25 and A-26 all had heavy armament from 6-12 .50 cals to the B-25 getting a 75mm itself
A design like this is built around the canon. It is a heavy piece of equipment. Compare that to an airplane with a dozen rockets (mounted under the wings) that have shaped copper charges. I do not have numbers for the weight of the canon or the rockets but it would not surprise me if they were similar. Additionally, when an airplane is carrying a bunch of rockets under its wings those rockets will affect its speed. That said, a rocket with a shaped copper charge has much more destructive potential than a three inch canon shell.
There are successful airplanes from the mid and late ww2 era with cannons however they became obsolete when the rockets were available.
The A-10 is the best CAS aircraft made to date. Hearing the A-10 coming to your aid was a sound so worth hearing.
It’s a terrible plane
Shhhh, don't let Lazerpig hear you say that
Is your opinion based on your experience?
Because afaik the A-10 was feared among ground troops for friendly fire accidents.
Well, it’s optics were terrible, the gun was too inaccurate to safely use for CAS, and other aircraft can drop the same guided bombs…
I’m really struggling to see why you like it. The only advantage I can think of is that if you want to destroy a large structure a significant distance from friendlies, that has no air defence, cheaply. In which case it’s gun is useful.
Even then, an AC130 is probably better.
@@HALLish-jl5moanyone who spells it “defence” has zero experience with it. Except for the Blues and Royals.😂 My guess is they’d tell you its gun is accurate enough
4600 Hp?
Hi, I got a video idea: the Ki-84 Hayate.
Interesting stuff if you can stand the v.o.
It would have been nice if the Air Farce had not cried and waved the Key West Agreement around when the Army was going to buy the Enforcer which would have been a great ground support aircraft that is capable of being forward staged.
Therefore he is also a distant relative of F-15 as well?
The a10 is a great beautiful aircraft
WRIGHT 3350's; that's some big, heavy engines. The decision not to go with P&W 2800's probably had a lot to do with that engine already earmarked for so many other a/c that there was no excess production capacity. Certainly by 1944, the "smaller," lighter, less thirsty 2800 was making power equivalent to the 3350.
Maybe with some chagrin on your part, you might consider a more likely candidate for the A-10 ancestral family tree to be one of your less-liked a/c, the Hs-129! You see, before Fairchild Republic cut metal for the A-10, the U.S. Air Force consulted with Hans Ulrich Rudel, WWII 's most experienced/successful ground attack pilot, regarding requirements for a best anti-tank a/c. Among his recommendations were redundancy, i.e., controls & twin engines, heavy protection for all vital systems to include armored cockpit tub, excess power, high rate of fire, flat shooting, high penetration gun, generous loiter time, variable weapons load out. So you see, just like Tyranosaurus to chicken, sometimes evolution can take some unanticipated turns. Like, Ju-87/Hs-129 to A-10.🙃
You choose 3350s because you need the power. The Lockheed Constellation was powered by 2800s in the interim but it had extremely limited performance.
I learned about the Grizzly in the early eighties in a German aerospace magazine. I´m fascinated about this aircraft since then
WRONG. Not "I'm..." ; should be "I have been..." .
@@dareisnogod5711 Thanks for correcting me - I´m not a native English speaker so I make a lot of mistakes. And, interestingly, I make more the older I get.
It's a really well designed plane. But it had indeed little value as a bomber killer by the time it could enter production, not many bomb raids were performed by either Germany or Japan in 1944, the newer fighters at hand for the allies were perfectly capable of taking out those bombers and their escorts.
As a ground attack aircraft it could have been of value in Europe as it was probably more effective against tanks with its 75mm cannon, but otherwise this role was adequately performed by the P-47, B-25 attack variants and the Hawker Typhoon.
It seems it wouldn't be difficult to exchange his piston engines for jets
There were other engines that would have given the '38 exdeptional performance so I don't buy the P&W R3350 scarcity was responsible for its demise. The Luftwaffe never had big bombers that needed to be shot down by a flying cannon. The Spits, Hurricanes, Lightnings, Thunderbolts and Mustangs took care of what the Germans through up just fine.
this guy released a video on a war thunder battlepass video that got dropped today, coincidence? probably, but its kinda cool how the vid and bp fell
Enemy didn’t have any big bombers for XA-38 shoot at.
WOW! This would have been the highest horsepower ground attack aircraft of WWII if it had been put into production with those high horsepower giant R-3350's! Had the allies had enough of these bad boys in service early in the war, these would have wreaked absolute havoc on the German ground forces and tank units spread across Europe. Most likely it was too late in the war to make a difference so they weren't pursued, or, they were probably the planned aircraft for attacking both the German's and the Japanese if the war would have extended out further than it did. America was probably thinking about what type of aircraft they could design to inflict the most damage against German tanks, Artillery pieces, FLAK gun emplacements, and even light attack and bombing on less significant targets or smaller targets where this type of aircraft would have been extremely effective in destroying the target on the first pass, especially if you had a group of these aircraft diving in and opening up with everything they had. The enclosed rear cabin and ability to turn the turrets a full 360 degrees from an electrically controlled firing station made it a very formidable aircraft to deal with in air to air battle as well, giving a better chance of survivability to the rear gunner who could be protected better than some of the earlier designed attack aircraft and dive bombing aircraft, many of which had OPEN designed rear gunner seats to allow movement of the guns during battle. Many Germany pilots would come in behind an aircraft that had rear facing gunners and they would attempt to quickly dispatch the gunner to avoid being shot at from the rear giving them a much better chance of hitting their mark from the rear with no interference from a rear firing machine gun. This would have been the Soviet IL2 Ilyushin "Sturmovik" ground attack aircraft on steroids! The Soviet IL2 was another aircraft that was studied when creating the famous A10 Thunderbolt II "Warthog" in addition to the JU-87 Stuka dive bomber, which was the original "Ground Attacker" in the modified 37 mm cannon carrying variant or "tank buster" variant which was flown with great success against the Russian tanks on the Eastern front. Even though the giant R-3350 engines did have some problems (which was discovered in the B-29's that had a LOT of engine failures due to mechanical problems), it still would have been one of the most powerful fighter/attacker aircraft of the entire war. It could have probably just outran anything that was trying to pursue it, except maybe the ME262, but even then, with the armament and ability to rotate the turrets to favorable positions easily from inside the aircraft could have allowed the aircraft to defend itself whilst trying to evade anything that was trying to shoot it down. The Grumman Tiger Cat was of similar design, although this Beechcraft XA-38 Grizzly was much more powerful and had much more armament and more powerful weapons. The Tiger Cat was designed to be a carrier based aircraft so it had to shed a lot more weight than this aircraft. This could have also been an incredible ground attack aircraft for both the Korean and Vietnam wars also had it been put into production and the US and it's allies would have had them in significant numbers.
XA-38 is a stretch. What about A20 or B25G which both excelled in A10 like roles from 1943.
just imagine an American mosquito, with RR super Merlin engines, just a simple design fix and VIOLA the SUPER GRIZZLY, job done!
The B-25 with it's eight 50cal machine guns plus it's bomb load was actually a better ground attack aircraft and was already being used as such. The P-38 and P-47, required just the pilot and by 1943 the army airforce had more planes then aircrews, what with the losses it was suffering in Europe. In fact the specifications laid out for the Skyraider to replace the Avengers and Dauntless was that it required just one pilot. The British already had the faster Mosquito and America could use the other twin engine bombers in it's inventory so why build something they didn't need since Japan and Germany didn't have any heavy bombers.
Greg Gates flew an A-10 in Area 88 for a reason...
The furthest I got in fighter aircraft video games was Jet Fighter II.
P47 is more like the grandfather of the F16 and F18: it was a fighter who was then tasked with becoming a ground attack plane…the F4 was their father, same situation as the P47 but with missiles instead of guns.
this plane is the true grandfather, built from the ground up to be a close air support plane vs. a bomber fitted with more guns like the A20 or a fighter used in strafing like the P47 and P51. the A-1 was its father, a true ground attack and close air support plane that lasted well into the jet age and only retired when it was replaced by the A10